What We Learned Last Week (14/04 – 20/04)

Britain’s largest food bank, the Trussell Trust have hit back at claims from Iain Duncan Smith and the Department for Work and Pensions, that they are “aggressively marketing” and “scaremongering” in order to “advance a political agenda” despite Cameron previously praising the work of the food banks in the UK.

The contrasting arguments from the Conservatives portray a government struggling to tackle the growing problem of food poverty in the UK. The comments come after a recent report from the Trussell Trust which showed that 1 million people have used a food bank in the UK in the last 12 months. Chris Mould, chairman of the Trussell Trust said:

“You can’t get free food from the Trussell Trust by walking through the door and asking for it; you must have a voucher. More than 24,000 professionals – half of whom work in the public sector and health service, the police, and in social services – ask us to give this food to clients because they’ve made the decision that this individual or family is in dire straits and needs help. We’re not drumming up demand.”

Speaking of attacks on the Trussell Trust, the Daily Mail’s attempt at smearing food banks and the people who use them in the Mail On Sunday was met with a backlash on Twitter and lead to donations being made to the ‘Crack UK Hunger’ page in defiance against the tabloid’s coverage.

The Mail attempted to portray that you could walk in and get food from food banks “no questions asked,” yet a couple of sentences later explained that their ‘undercover reporter’ was asked a series of questions about why they needed the food bank vouchers as well as their personal details.

2) 3.8 millions families are living on a “knife-edge” say homeless charity

3.8 million families are one paycheck away from losing their home, say homeless charity, Shelter. New research reveals that around one-third of all families would be unable to pay rent or mortgage payments if they lost their job or income as they do not have enough savings. This is also backed up by government figures which show 15 million adults in the UK have no savings.

“Kate lost her job in October 2013 when the business she worked for went bankrupt. She had already fallen behind on her mortgage because her employer wasn’t paying her properly. Kate later received a letter informing her that the mortgage lender was seeking to repossess her home.

“Kate said: “They hadn’t been paying me properly, so I’d begun to fall behind on my mortgage. Then I got the letter through the door saying they wanted to take my house back. I was petrified. I thought what am I going to do? How am I going to tell my daughter and my mum that we have to move out?”

Real Talks’ first event, ‘A Job’s Worth’ takes place this Thursday at Hoxton Hall from 7:30pm.

Through original pieces of interviews and writing, we will create a stimulus for debate with an audience and panel on Employment in 2014. You can find out more here, and register your place by emailing admin@innercitytheatre.co.uk